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Summertime

June 15th is Waylon’s Birthday so we had lots of Waylon tunes filling the air at our house this week. Also just out is Twistable, Turnable Man, a musical tribute to the late Shel Silverstein in which Bobby Bare, Jr. put together some great songs sung by some great folks and this, it turns out, is a fun summer album. It makes me happy.

The local organic tomatoes and blueberries have appeared and this, also, makes me very happy.

One of my favorite ways to enjoy these little tomatoes is to half them, spread them out on a cookie sheet, cover in olive oil and roast in the oven with garlic cloves. Then you can do all sorts of things with them! For this particular evening, I also roasted summer squash and asparagus, added fresh basil from our garden and then threw over pasta and topped it with Reypenaer 2 year aged Gouda cheese. Delicious.

We LOVE blueberries and they are so good for you. We eat them all by themselves, with plain yogurt, in smoothies, fruit salads or sometimes… I make my Mom’s famous Blueberry Crumble Top Pie!

Earlier in the week, we drove over to 12th South to wander around and see what was new. We stopped at the new Green Light Market which is next to the new Las Paletas location and the new, much talked about restaurant, Burger Up. The market is tiny but cute and friendly. They have yummy sounding sandwiches, homemade lavash crackers that are amazing, local specialty items and some local organic produce.

We found some amazing English Peas. I did some recipe searches trying to figure out what I wanted to do with them. I really like this recipe on Heidi Swanson’s 101 Cookbook site and I found one other I really liked that was just a simple salad with Arugula and Pecorino Romano cheese and a couple other ingredients. I ended up sort of combining both recipes and came up with my own which we ate with some garlic and fresh basil roasted chicken in foil that Grant made.

To make the mint dressing, puree the mint, raisins, chiles, olive oil, and lemon juice and zest using a food processor or hand blender. Blend until uniform in texture. Thin it out by adding a tablespoon of water so that it is a consistency in which you can drizzle over salad. Taste and adjust for lemon and spiciness.

Cook shelled peas in salted boiling water for no more than one minute. Immediately drain peas and place in a bowl of ice water to stop cooking process.

Just before serving gently toss the peas, lettuce, and cheese with about half of the dressing and a couple pinches of salt. Taste and add more dressing if you like.

Serves 2 – 4.

We used the leftovers in a sandwich wrap the next day!

Grant's chicken dish that accompanied the pea salad!

Also this week, I found some new and interesting cole slaw recipes. This one was particularly different and I have to admit that the thought of raw collard greens did not sound too appetizing to either Grant or myself. But, we tried it anyway and knew the raw vegetables would, if nothing else, be really good for our bodies. Surprisingly, we both really enjoyed it and were able to eat it with two very different meals this week. The first night we enjoyed it with a shrimp and Andouille sausage gumbo Grant made and the second night, we served it with Terriyaki salmon and some rice.

Combine collards, cabbage, carrots and onion in a large salad bowl. Toss until well mixed. Combine orange and lemon juices, ginger, garlic and salt in a small bowl. Slowly whisk in olive oil and continue to whisk until emulsified. Adjust seasoning to taste. Pour dressing over greens and toss until greens are well coated.